


won't you exorcise my mind?

by fredesrojo



Series: group therapy [1]
Category: The Old Guard (Comics), The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Allusion to one-time Andy/Quynh/Nicky/Joe way back in the day, Booker x therapy OTP, F/F, Gen, How To Give The Talk to an Immortal and other 21st Century knowledge: a novel by Nile Freeman, M/M, Mentioned Booker | Sebastien le Livre, Multi, Nile is so done with everyone's bullshit you don't even understand, Nile really isn't interested in everyone's sex life guys, Normally Andy is a top but if Quynh is in the equation that switch is flipped so fast, Quynh is also mentioned, asexual/demisexual Nile Freeman, someone please get these people some therapy, this probably should be tagged Booker/Therapy because that's the real winner here
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:08:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25538557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fredesrojo/pseuds/fredesrojo
Summary: It takes Nile about one month following everything at Merrick Pharma to notice her dreams of Quynh have changed. It takes three days beyond that for Nile to realize that(This is the one where Nile eventually gets everyone to go to therapy because good Gods do they need it.)
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Nile Freeman/Quynh | Noriko, Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: group therapy [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1872793
Comments: 46
Kudos: 472





	1. i’m haunted by your ancient history

**Author's Note:**

> This is not a Booker apology tour, this is a "understand that living longer than your family and watching them die hating you" in addition to "having the drowning dreams of a woman who's slowly going mad" is 100% going to leave someone not quite okay in the head. 
> 
> Nile just wants all of them to get some damn therapy, jeez.
> 
> I have not had the opportunity to read the comics yet, but I do eventually plan on trying to wrap in some of comics canon.

Copley advises them to lay low following Merrick Pharma, at least for a month or two. Nile, Nicky, Joe and Andy spend about a week in Manchester while the hubbub from Merrick dies down a bit, then head across the Channel through Paris and eventually to Marseille. 

Booker disappears after the conversation on the Thames, seemingly accepting his banishment as due punishment.

(Nile didn’t know him, and had stated that bluntly when asked her opinion -- she was fine with an apology because she didn’t really feel she had the right to request anything more stringent. Joe wanted more than a century. Nicky seemed the most sympathetic, and had pushed back when Joe first named off the next millennia as penalty. Andy didn’t say much of anything until she finally pointed out that she wasn’t likely to see Booker again regardless of how long they chose, which immediately quieted Joe’s argument. One hundred years would pass like the blink of an eye for immortals, but the spectre of Andy’s mortal-again body loomed large in the background of all of their conversation.)

The Marines declare her K.I.A. by “unknown combatants”. Her momma gets a flag, and an empty casket is interred in the same cemetery in Chicago where her father lies. Copley’s behind the scenes work had orchestrated enough that “Nile” is buried with full military honors, rather than being branded A.W.O.L. and bringing that shame down onto her family. He offers Nile the option of viewing the funeral and burial, but she declines.

(It hurts --  _ burns _ , even -- to know that Momma and Ty are essentially dead to her. It hurts like hell to think that Momma and Ty and her cousins would grow old without her, would resent her if they knew, but the Marines always drilled brutal practicality, regardless of personal feelings.)

Andy is stubborn regarding her new mortality, disappearing for long periods of time during the day wherever they are. Sometimes she comes back smelling of liquor, and sometimes she doesn’t come back until the next morning. Nile wants to say something -- hell, anything -- but follows Joe and Nicky’s lead.

In the rush of getting out of England and then in trying to keep Andy’s fucking stubborn ass still long enough to ensure her wounds are properly treated to protect against infection, it’s nearly a month and half after they leave Booker standing on the banks of the Thames that Nile notices that her nightmares of Quynh have changed, become murkier. It takes two more nights past that for Nile to realize that Quynh no longer dreams of drowning.

The argument between Nicky and Joe is what sets her off.

Joe’s temper seemed readily evident within the first days of meeting him. It takes Nile longer to understand that Nicky’s seemingly kinder nature covers a cold-burning temper that flares most when he feels Joe is being unnecessarily thick-headed. Andy is repressed by comparison to both, but absolutely deadly cold -- similar to Nicky, but perhaps not dissimilar from Booker’s overall apathy. 

She comes back from a grocery run, still mentally picking through what she remembers in flashes from Quynh in her dream last night and debating whether to tell the boys and Andy, and walks into a veritable warzone.

Andy is gone, as she so frequently is (Nile’s not entirely unconvinced that she hasn’t found someone to fuck, and resolves to have the “you’re not immortal anymore and can probably definitely get STI’s now” conversation sooner rather than later). Nile carries the canvas sacks in through the front door and narrowly avoids getting brained by a cast-iron pan.

Nicky’s furious stream of Italian mixed with Arabic washes past her awareness at the same time that she notices Joe standing a few feet to her left, shouting back in his own polyglot of languages. Both are red-faced. The kitchen is a disaster.

Joe abruptly veers back into English. “A HUNDRED YEARS IS PENNIES COMPARED TO WHAT HE OWES FOR WHAT HE DID!”

“You  _ agreed _ to what we all decided, Yusuf,” Nicky snaps back, hands shaking by his sides. “This fixation on whatever fucked up revenge you think --” He cuts off abruptly, carding his hands through his hair furiously. “Gods, we all fucked up! None of us fucking noticed he had a death wish, not even Andromache! You can’t --” He swears in Italian, palms slamming flat onto the bartop. 

“This is  _ not  _ on Andromache.” Joe’s voice drops a level, seemingly furious that Nicky would even imply. 

“I didn’t say that.”

“You--”

“This is on all of us, Yusuf. We failed him, just as he failed us.” Nicky’s fury quiets into tired resignation, shoulders slumped from where he still stands at the bar. “Sebastien didn’t have anyone. Not like you or I. Not like Andromache and Quynh.”

Joe bristles. “You think that fucking excuses--”

“No, I don’t, which is why I agreed to the amount of time we determined. Sebastien has been very sad and very alone for a long time, for him. Longer than he knew his family, longer than Nile has even been on this Earth.”

“Andy’s--”

“Andy is Andy. She has been alone longer than she’s been with someone, my love. She was oh so very lonely for so long until she found Quynh, and Lykon. Lykon died, and Andy lost Quynh. At this point…” Nicky sighs. “You and I are truly blessed, in this immortal game. We have each other, and likely will die together. Sebastien has no one. Andy had--Andy has no one.”

“She has us.”

Nicky chuckles hollowly. “And how much time does she spend away from our company, my love?” He shakes his head. “You cannot blame Sebastien this betrayal any more than you can blame Nile for being young. He has wanted to die for a very long time it seems, and that arrangement with Copley must have seemed like a last way out for him.”

Joe shakes his head. “ _ Sebastien _ is not the one paying the price of that decision.”

“Andy wouldn’t want you fighting her battles for her,” Nile finally chooses to chip in, rising from the defensive crouch she’d held just outside the front door, avoiding any further flying kitchen implements. “Honestly she’d probably kick your ass if she heard.”

“There is so much we don’t know about our immortality.” Nicky says, leaving the kitchen to come help Nile with the groceries spread on the floor. “There is nothing that says what Sebastien did caused Andy’s healing to go. Perhaps it is her time, or close to it.”

Joe scowls. “That’s bullshit.”

“He didn’t know Copley’s deal involved what Merrick did to you,” Nile retorts evenly, rescuing an errant tomato from the front steps, and grabbing the cast-iron pan from the doorway. “I know he wasn’t lying when he said that.” When Joe opens his mouth, she raises a finger to cut him off. “He’s depressed, probably has PTSD from  _ literally watching his family die hating him _ , and he has no one. Not like you do, and not like Andy did with Quynh. And if he’s been getting the same dreams from Quynh I’ve been getting for 200 years, I can understand why his head’s fucked up.”

“That should not excuse his--”

“I’m not saying it does,” she snaps, frustrated. “I’m saying all of you need some fuckin’ therapy, Jesus Christ.”

Joe blinks. “I…”

Nicky outright laughs. “Well, you certainly aren’t wrong, even if actually getting therapy is perhaps more complicated than we would like for it to be.”

Nile rolls her eyes. “Don’t make excuses. If you truly believed it would help, you would have found a way to make it work a long time ago. I wasn’t born yesterday, and I know how the Marines are about fuckin’ therapists. Stands to reason anyone else with any kinda military background is gonna feel the same.” 

“You think talking to someone would have stopped Booker?” Joe’s skeptical frown carries through his tone as he grabs the second bag of groceries and heads for the kitchen.

“I think that’s a question you should ask Booker.” Nile shrugs. “Momma had Ty and I go talk to one of the groups at the VA after my dad died. It's not -- there's no magical bandage to fix everything. But it makes it easier to live with. And right now, Book doesn't wanna live with anything at all."

"...And we just left him alone. For the next hundred years." For the first time, Joe seems to understand what the punishment truly means. 

"Yeah."

"Shit."

"That'd be about the whole of it, yeah." Nile joins Nicky in putting the groceries away. "Speaking of alone, my dreams of Quynh have changed. And I'm pretty sure it's not in a good way. She's... she's not okay. Mentally, I mean."

Nicky rights a few utensils clearly disturbed in their earlier argument. "Is she…"

"She's not drowning anymore. I'm not exactly sure when it changed. But I think she's also trying to mislead me on purpose, because I only get flashes of what's actually happening around her, and then she forces the memory of her drowning to the front." She sighs, rubbing at the bridge of her nose. "I'm trying consciously not to give her glimpses of where we are. Or of Andy's...you know. But I'm also not sure if we should tell Andy or not."

Joe exchanges an alarmed look with Nicky. "You think she's blocking you? To what end?"

"I told you all she feels crazy in my dreams. I think --" Nile swallows, nervous. "I think right now she's fixated on Andy. As the  _ reason _ for her suffering. And she's mad. She's really, really mad."

"You think she would kill Andromache," Nicky says slowly. He looks both alarmed and not particularly surprised by Nile's assessment.

"Yeah. Or that there's a damn good chance she's going to try as hard as she can to kill her. And right now I can't even get an accurate read on where she is. She's making sure anything I get of what's happening to her now is foggy, hard to understand. What little I get before it switches back to the drowning...it's not good."

"Is she with anyone?"

She leans against the counter, head bowed. "If she is they know not to speak." Nile murmurs, head cradled in her hands. "I've been trying to think of how all this might go down since I noticed the dreams had changed, but I'm also not sure  _ when _ they changed." She looks up, somber. "I'm sorry, guys."

"It has been a very interesting few months. I -- that is,  _ we  _ \-- do not blame you. Especially not if Quynh has figured out how to consciously change what she is showing you."

Nile sniffs, laughing bleakly. "Doesn't really make me feel better, but thanks."

Nicky hums, nudging his shoulder gently against hers. "Let's sit down, and try to figure out everything you are able to glean from Quynh before the dreams change. Then, we will figure out what to tell Andy."

"Speakin' of that...I think we need to have a talk with her anyways," Nile mutters, straightening up abruptly. "Or at least I do. She can't go tom-cattin' around, not if she's mortal. There's a whole mess of shit she could pick up now that there's not regeneration to flush everything out of her immune system."

Both Nicky and Joe's brows crinkle in confusion, and then abruptly clear. "Oh."

"...Yeah. I'm not lookin' forward to giving a thousands of years old formerly immortal warrior The Talk," she mumbles. 

Nicky chuckles. "I don't envy you." 

Nile very kindly flips him off, scowling. "Maybe it is a good thing you all found me. Bunch'a centuries old attitudes about medicine and keeping yourself healthy."

Joe sniffs in offense. "I'll have you know I'm the very picture of perfect health." 

Nicky's loud laughter raises Nile's spirits as she giggles. "C'mon, let's figure out what Quynh  _ is _ giving me."


	2. soak the ropes with your holy water

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nile and Andy have The Talk.
> 
> Andy finds out Nile's dreams have changed.
> 
> Jokes are made about Joe's "sword".

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm firmly in the camp of most of the guard being of the mentality that "if it doesn't kill me it's not worth much notice" because they've been alive for too long. Nile has no such feelings, and has also grown up in the 21st century. Now that Andy's mortal, Nile isn't gonna wait around for someone to end up with STI's because nobody's had a safe sex talk and all of them were born before most modern hygiene practices truly evolved. (See Andy's confusion in the pharmacy).

The Talk with Andy is just as mortifying as Nile imagined, given that it takes her more than half an hour to understand  _ what _ Nile's talking about, and a further quarter hour after that for Nile to chase her back down long enough to get her to  _ listen _ .

(Stubborn ass.)

Andy begrudgingly follows Nile to a local health clinic, and uses one of the burner identities Copley provided in order to get tested -- thankfully coming away with a clean bill of health. The ensuing trip to a local pharmacy for supplies is mortifying in equal parts for both Nile and Andy, but they persevere and return to the safehouse with what Nile terms a "safe kit". 

(The package of condoms she buys for Joe are much more of a joke. Andy even manages to crack a smile and a quiet huff of laughter at Joe's righteous indignation, while Nile giggles helplessly on the floor, and Nicky bites down laughter in between consoling his partner.

"EXTRA SMALL? Nicolo -- Nico tell them--tell them I am not--"

"I don't think they want to know the size of your sword my love."

"TELL THEM.")

Andy witnesses the aftermath of her next dream from Quynh, and they decide to tell her everything else they have discovered. She sits in rigid silence, bracketed by Nicky and Joe on either side while Nile quietly explains what she is and isn't seeing, and what the three of them think the changes mean.

She explodes off of the couch in a flurry of motion when Nile finally falls silent, pacing the living room with one hand carded through her hair.

"We -- Every time I've been alone on breaks, I've been searching, it's been  _ centuries _ , I--" Her voice cracks alarmingly down the middle, and Nicky moves off the couch quickly enough to catch her as her knees give out. "I can't --  _ Quynh. _ "

"We know. You have been looking for so very long. You didn't give up, but this is not the same Quynh you loved for so long, Andromache." Nicky keeps a bracing arm curled gently around her shoulder, thumb sweeping in a soothing pattern across the bare skin of her arm. "Five hundred years is a very long time to be alone with only death and your own thoughts."

"I never -- I…" Andy looks achingly young and vulnerable, all of her emotions plain on her face for the first time since Nile has known her. 

"The part of her that loves has been buried very carefully," Nile starts slowly, picking through the fragments of emotion she receives from Quynh in her dreams. "Her mind needed  _ something _ to protect itself."

"She's not --"

"We don't know what state she's in. She's hiding herself purposely, as soon as she figured out I was new. The same way I've been hiding us, once I noticed the dreams changed."

Andy pales. "Booker."

Joe scowls and nods towards Nile. "She reached out to Copley. He is quietly keeping tabs on Sebastien to see if Quynh shows up. There is an emergency code set up, if she appears wherever he is."

"She's not --" She cuts herself off as abruptly as she had begun speaking, shaking her head. "You think she would --"

"I don't know, Andy. What I do know is that she's angry." That Booker might be the easiest target now, separate from the group and so miserable, is left unsaid.

"Fuck."

Nile smiles wanly. "Yeah. I know. I'm sorry, Andy."

Andy laughs hollowly, ceding to Nicky's guiding hands nudging her back to the couch. "I've been looking for her. For so long. I -- every chance I got, every scrap we could chase down." She sniffs. "Even in this century. I almost -- when that crew found the Titanic, I was so close to going to find those scientists and dragging them back to England with me, but --"

Nile swallows a laugh. "England's really not a great place for us, is it?"

"Could be better. Not as bad as Australia, though." Joe shakes his head. "Nothing good ever happens in Australia." 

"Italy, though. Italy is alright." 

Nile joins Andy on the couch, leaves her hand open palm up on the cushions between them as Joe and Nicky begin to fondly argue back and forth regarding the best and worst places they've been. Eventually Andy's fingers thread through hers, squeezing once in gratitude. She leaves her hand there, thumb running gently up and down the side of Andy's hand as they listen to Joe and Nicky talk, until the sun rises.


	3. tie me down as you read out the words

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A wild Quynh appears, and she is ANGRY.
> 
> Booker is not really in a great place. Andy is sad and still hopelessly in love with Quynh.
> 
> Nile just wants everyone to get through this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have probably made Joe a bit more forgiving than canon makes him out to be, but I also just desperately want these poor immortal beings to get some therapy.
> 
> Booker seems canonically self-sacrificing to the point of allowing others' guilts to be piled on him as penance.

The next two months of dreams from Quynh are frustratingly vague, and then Nile dreams of Booker's bloodshot eyes as Quynh strangles the life from him and wakes screaming.

Andy, who had started sleeping next to her (whether in misplaced guilt or simply a desire to be close to some small part of Quynh, she doesn't ask), startles awake with a gun in one hand and the haft of her labrys in the other. Nicky and then Joe burst into the room, guns drawn.

Nile rolls away and vomits over the side of the futon she and Andy share, choking on bile and sobs. "France somewhere, I think. All the labels in the kitchen were in French. Booker's dead."

"What?"

"She found him," She fumbles for the water cup on the table next to them, swishes and spits away the taste of bile and the ethereal taste of Quynh's anger. "It's fuzzy. I think Booker must have told her about Andy. She snapped his neck, and then waited for him to regenerate and strangled him."

Her stomach rolls and heaves. There's a faint presence of heat behind her -- Andy, hovering -- and Nicky moves to crouch in front of her. "Anything else."

"She wanted -- she wanted to kill Andy herself. Knowing she's mortal now, she... It's just so much _rage_." Nile clutches her head, curling inward. "Fuck, it hurts so bad."

Joe is already moving before Andy finds her voice. "Copley. We need to get to Paris."

Andy's hand shakes where it settles on her shoulder, squeezing in an attempt to comfort. "Is she moving?"

Nile chuckles brokenly. "No, she seems pretty content to play with her food and wait for us to stumble in." This is the clearest her dreams of Quynh have been since the first night she met the group. "She's...this is deliberate. She's sending a message."

Andy sighs, rising to throw a jacket on over the tank and jeans she'd slept in. "Yeah. Message received." 

"Andy. She's not gonna stop."

"...I know."

Copley has them on a chartered flight to Charles De Gaulle by the time the sun rises. The plane is noticeably nicer than their usual "under the radar" fare, and Copley is there when they board. He shrugs at Nile's questioning look. "This is as much my fault as any of yours. She slipped past all of my surveillance and killed Booker four times I could hear on audio before I could even get an accurate camera angle to confirm."

Andy spends the entire flight with her head resting on folded hands atop her labrys, lips moving silently. Nicky cleans and checks a sniper rifle, his gaze occasionally darting to Joe, methodically cleaning his scimitar.

Booker had sent a beautiful sabre to Nile on what would have been her birthday if she still aged about a month ago, a package ferried through Copley to their safehouse in Italy. Nicky had taken one look at the fine leather tooling on the handle and the tied blue fabric hanging from the guard, and smiled slightly. "It was Sebastien's, in the army of Napoleon. He never much liked it, but Andy always drilled learning as many fighting styles as possible." 

She has drilled relentlessly under Andy's tutelage, sparring with Joe and Nicky while Andy calls corrections to form and movement from the balcony. It still doesn't fit perfectly in her grip, but Nile will take any small chance in the coming battle with Quynh. She checks the blade for any flaws as they fly through the skies to an uncertain battle.

They land in Paris by midday, piling in to a Range Rover with Nicky at the wheel and Copley patching together four comm sets in the backseat. He flips open a laptop, bringing a single grainy video screen to life. "This is the only one she hasn't found. Or hasn't purposefully destroyed."

In grainy black and white, Booker hangs from a ceiling fan, his feet alternately twitching and dangling limp. Quynh sits astride an ottoman at his feet, the faint gleam of blades flashing periodically in her hands. 

Joe swears violently. " _Andy_."

"I know."

"This is…" Joe presses the heels of his palms to his eyes, groaning. "You're not going in there alone to die. This isn't some noble death to -- _no_."

Andy smiles hollowly. "This isn't my time?"

From the driver's seat, Nicky reaches back to grasp her hand. "Absolutely not."

"You're not dying on my watch, boss," Nile says quietly. She turns to stare Andy down. "Not today."

Andy's returning smile is tremulous, and her eyes shine with unshed tears. "Alright. Let's bring our family back together again."

The plan is...not great, and almost entirely depends on Nile's ability to accurately read Quynh's mood from the dream. Nicky will shoot the frayed power cord noose from Booker's neck. Nile and Andy, by virtue of being the new one and the one Quynh is so very angry with, will breach from the window. Joe will come in the front door, with Copley running back-end as the only other mortal of their group. They will fight, they will protect Andy, and they will find some way of subduing Quynh.

(Nile remembers the devastating power of those she'd fought in Afghanistan hiding behind bombs and human shields, and hopes desperately that Quynh's twenty first century acclimation has not yet introduced her to pipe bombs or fragmentation grenades.)

They basically have to assume Booker won't be a functional factor in any battle. By Copley's estimate, Quynh has been killing him roughly every two minutes -- a macabre call-back to her centuries in the coffin. 

It will have to work. They don't have another option.

They park a scant block from Booker's apartment. (There's no point in subterfuge. Quynh knows exactly where they are and how they're coming.) Nicky grasps the back of Andy's neck, pressing his forehead against hers. "We come back together. _Si?_ Together, or not at all."

Andy nods. Joe presses a fleeting kiss to all three of their foreheads in quick succession and moves across the street to the front entrance of Booker's building. Nile and Andy move to the alleyway behind Booker's dining nook, Nile palming a flash grenade waiting on Nicky's ready signal. 

A double tap sounds over comms. Nicky sights and fires. Booker crumples to the ground wheezing for air, and Nile pulls the pin on the grenade and lobs it through the open window. With a muffled bang, Quynh gives an unearthly scream of anger, and Joe breaches through the front door in a spray of bullets and swinging scimitar. Nile vaults through the window and barely draws her sabre in time to parry a flung knife, Quynh snarling as Joe stumbles to his feet, blood already receding on his thigh. 

Andy climbs through the window behind Nile, and everything stops. "Hello, my love."

Quynh's smile is a knife slash in the dark, the rumblings of a predator ready to pounce. "Andromache." Her gaze flickers to Nile, her smirk widens. "The new one. Has she told you our _tragic_ story yet, little one?"

"You don't have to do this," Nile cautions. Draw her attention from Andy. Keep Nicky's sightline open. _Don't_ look at Booker motionless on the floor.

"Until the very end." Quynh fixes her gaze back on Andy. Her eyes are cold, hypnotizing. Nile remembers Joe's laughing description of her fights. _She was a pit viper in a fight. So fast, struck before you even knew what was happening._ "You stopped searching, dear Andromache. You _gave up_."

Andy nods. "All of the men, the ones on the ships that could have taken you out to sea. They were all dead. No log, no record of voyages. I spent centuries looking, and I found nothing." 

"Three hundred years." Quynh's voice is eerie -- somehow sharp and tender in the same moment. "Then you found a new one, and you gave up." Sharp and violent, her booted foot flashes out to kick the back of Booker's head. "This one spent two centuries pickling himself and you let him."

"The dreams weren't helping us find you," Andy murmurs, her voice raw. "How do you find a coffin on the ocean floor?"

Quynh smirks. "They dragged me up with a net full of fish and I killed all of them, all but one boy to bring me to land. I left him and his crew to rot with their catch." Her cold eyes swing to Nile. "You kept me from Andromache in the dreams. You never gave me a location." Her smile turns almost fond as she looks down at Booker. "This one was an open book by comparison."

"You were good, pushing the drownings back to the front," Nile mutters. "They almost seemed the same, but you were too happy."

(Happy is not the right word, but it's the least imperfect one Nile has to describe the difference in Quynh's madness.)

"He told me everything, sold himself down the river as some penance." The knife in Quynh's hand moves across her knuckles in an almost reverent motion. "After so long, you're going to leave me, Andromache?"

"We don't know."

"Perhaps you should have let that ingrate man-boy cut you apart to find out," She snarls, and the knife rises in slow motion.

Nile lunges in defense, fully prepared to take a blade to the neck again if it protects Andy. Nicky's rifle cracks a sharp report, and then Joe shoots. Andy's grip on her labrys relaxes.

Booker tackles Quynh from behind, jamming a knife into her throat.

She chokes, collapses to her knees. Andy jerks forward with a wordless cry, held back at the last moment by a bear hug from Nile. 

Quynh smiles, teeth garish and red with blood, and dies.

Booker yanks the knife from her neck, methodically removes all of the weapons she had hidden under her red coat, and holds a hand out to Joe. "Give it." His voice rasps from his throat, gutteral and pained.

Joe hands over a syringe. They wait until Quynh gasps back to life, and the needle plunges into her vein. One keening scream ekes from her throat before the paralytic and sedatives kick in, and she goes limp.

Andy collapses like a puppet with the strings cut, sobbing in Nile's arms. She grasps desperately for Quynh's hand, wrapping her fingers around her wrist.

"We need to move." Joe pulls a straightjacket from his pack, and Andy's sobs ratchet up in volume. Booker swears in French in the background, fumbling for bottles in the cabinets. 

"Not -- not like this," Andy mumbles, fingers white-knuckled around Quynh's wrists. "I won't -- not like this."

"She's not herself," Joe argues, gesturing loosely with the jacket. "You know this isn't even a guarantee."

"She needs _help_."

"She needs to not be around you," Nile finally realizes, her heart aching at the look of betrayal on Andy's face. "It's driving her insane."

"The only thing she could fixate on, for centuries of drowning over and over and over," Booker rasps from the counter, eyeing a bottle of liquor but not drinking yet. His hands shake where they rest on the counter top. "Nile's right. She needs……..she needs something. But right now, it can't be you. She'd kill you. And it would kill her."

Copley and then Nicky rush through the door. "We need to move, now."

Andy cradles Quynh's hands in hers, face wet with tears. "I _promised_."

"And you can keep it, when Quynh is ready." Nile reaches down, gently extracts Andy's grip from Quynh and pulls her to her feet. "But right now we need to get out of here and get Quynh somewhere safe. So we need to go."

Booker's head is already bowed, quiet and resigned. "I'll see you in one hundred years."

"Don't be foolish. You're coming with us," Joe snaps briskly, waving his hand in an encompassing gesture at the room. "You certainly aren't staying here."

Nicky nods at Booker's stunned and questioning look. "It is time to come home, Sebastien."

Booker blinks, hands still shaking. "I--"

"You were prepared to die over and over to satiate her madness if it meant she wouldn't come after us," Andy says hoarsely. She clutches at Nile -- perhaps to keep herself from reaching desperately for Quynh as Nicky lifts her gently from the floor -- but otherwise seems stable enough on her feet. "Nile has some ideas. For all of us. We've spent too long ignoring all of the demons in our heads. It's time to start living again."

He stares at all of them, indecision warring with desperate longing on his face. The bottle of liquor stays on the counter. Booker grabs a duffle from behind the dining table and nods to the door. "Let's go."

* * *

Quynh is sedated again when they reach the plane. Andy won't hear any discussion of restraining her otherwise, and spends the entire flight to Istanbul sitting on the floor between the seats, Quynh's sleeping body cradled in her arms, and a lilting song in a language Nile doesn't recognize spilling from her lips.

Booker sits where he can keep Quynh fully in his sights and pointedly ignores the wet bar stocked in the back of the plane. He doesn't quite startle when Nile sits next to him, but it's a close thing. He blinks when she offers the sabre and shakes his head.

"It's yours. I -- the man who used that sword died at the end of a noose in Russia." He offers a crooked smile. "Better it goes to a warrior with honor."

"You are a warrior with honor." 

"Keep it. A present given should never be returned. From a brother to a sister." Booker gently folds her hands back over the scabbard. "I know you will not get your corporal's blade back. It was buried, at your funeral. Let me do this small thing."

Joe comes back from checking up in the cockpit with Nicky and Copley, flying the plane. He eyes the heart monitor Copley had handed Andy to attach to Quynh, and then settles into the seats across from Booker and Nile. "About two hours." His gaze sweeps over Quynh's supine form, Andy's arms a gentle bracket and bulwark both against the outside world. "Nile thinks that we should be speaking to a professional."

Booker blinks. " _Psychologue_ _?_ "

"If we do this right, I hope we can bring Quynh some peace."

"Who can we trust?"

"From a logical standpoint almost no one. But I also don't think we have a choice otherwise." Joe rubs at his beard. "Copley is setting up two houses."

"One for you three. And one for myself, Quynh, and Nile," Booker realizes, running a hand through his hair. "Dangerous assumption, that Nile and I would be enough to stop her."

"It's all we have," Andy finally speaks, her voice still just as soft as when she was singing. "And I think Nile's right. We all could _really_ do with some therapy to get our heads screwed on right."

"You think if we give her enough distance from it, her fixation will end."

"Unfortunately none of us has a psychology degree to know for sure." Nile gently takes Booker's free hand, intertwining their fingers and squeezing gently. "Right now, you and I are Quynh's best chance. At anything."

"She'll kill me, if I stay," Andy murmurs, echoing Booker's warning from before. "And to be honest I'm fairly certain she'd do the same to Joe and Nicky."

"Because they got the happy ending." Booker's tone is wry, even as he stares at Joe. "Nile's too new to be anything more than guilt bait for you, and I was the easy target."

Joe hums. "You are forgiven, Sebastien. Regardless of if you forgive yourself. I have had some time to think, and Nile has helped us all to understand just how melancholy those dreams from Quynh could be." He smiles, a twisting curl of one side of his mouth that makes his dimples pop. "Nicolo agreed with Nile. He would have been happy with an apology."

"So that's it? We talk to this _psychologue_ , we hope she's not fucking insane forever, we just...do this?" His voice rises, incredulous and slightly choked. "After what --"

Andy sighs. "We all made mistakes, Book. We got complacent, and I gave up. _We_ gave up. The least we can do is offer a second chance."

"I--I do not--" Booker's crying now, shoulders hitching on sobs, hands shaking in front of him. Joe slides forward enough to grapple him into a tight hug, arms banded around his back. "You deserve the exact same chance as anyone." He says fiercely. "We are capable of so much good, brother. You just have to see the proof of it. Copley's boards are a map of the good we've done. We will find your stories, and you'll see." Booker cries into his shoulder until his sobs quiet into raspy but gentle breathing, and Joe and Nile maneuver him carefully to lay prone on one of the couches, Joe sitting guard on the floor by his feet, and Nile with his head resting in her lap. For the first time in years, Sebastien Le Livre sleeps peacefully, surrounded by his family.


	4. hold me closer than anyone before

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Therapy is had by all. Quynh learns about technology, Nile learns way more about everyone's sex lives than she wants to, Andy is a beautiful disaster bisexual.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I somewhat gloss over the true therapeutic aspects, especially on Andy, Joe, and Nicky's side of things, but I may come back later in this series. Suffice to say, Quynh gets some therapy, Booker gets some therapy, and Nile is very, very tired of all of their shenanigans.

Nile and Booker are the only ones that Quynh is capable of being around for the first three months. She is by turns angry, despondent, and near hysterical, often crying and screaming long into the night. Nile grows used to catching sleep during the day, trading four hour shifts with Booker. 

Copley finds a bevy of therapists, all specialists in various areas of the traumas they all have, and sets up secure video conferences and NDAs that will have any who talk swimming in litigation until their great-great-grandchildren are dead. (None of them trust Quynh enough not to try to murder any unfamiliar people in an in-person session. It's enough of a struggle to get her to sit through her own sessions with the therapists Copley found.)

Nile talks most often of the final feeling of betrayal, finding packed bags on her rack after Sarge told her they were sending her to Landstuhl. So many months removed, she almost feels grateful for Andy's abduction and the subsequent trip to France, but she still misses her squad like an aching wound. It hurts less each day, gaps filling with this new family she's found (who found her), but she dutifully sits through video conferences twice a week on her own, and once a week with all of them minus Quynh (for now).

Quynh's sessions are a lot. Either she or Booker sits in on them, both as guard for Quynh and often as mouthpiece for the therapist when something too new for Quynh's centuries of drowning to understand trips her up.

She is by turns violently possessive and murderous regarding Andy. The first session they try with Andy sitting in over video, Quynh shatters the tablet against the wall and Booker has to take a long walk to calm his own anger and guilt. Nile texts Copley and the therapist separately to order a new tablet and to reschedule, respectively. Quynh huddles in the middle of the floor, knees curled up tight to her chest, face hidden under the curtain of her hair. She's mostly ambivalent towards Nile, probably due to her newness. Booker is alternately a source of betrayal against Andy, or a convenient scapegoat for her rage. (That he stole Quynh's ability to cause Andy's death at her own hands -- however inadvertently -- causes her towering rages most frequently.)

Booker is...not really in a great place mentally, but he essentially quits drinking almost cold turkey and spends whatever time they aren't talking with therapists or training (always with guns or hand to hand, he never brings up the sabre sitting by Nile's bed and she respects his silence) teaching Nile a slew of languages. First Italian, easiest for her due to its similarity with both French and Spanish, then Greek, Arabic, and rudimentary Pashto. He spends a memorable and frustrating week trying to teach her Russian but eventually gives it up as a bad job, sending her to a video conference call with Andy while Quynh laughs mercilessly in the background.

Eventually, Quynh's sessions progress positively enough that her therapists agree another try at a session with Andy is a good idea. Booker bows out, either unable or unwilling to witness another attempt at reconciliation between the two former lovers. Nile sets up with her newest burner phone and the hidden Spotify account Copley had created for her, ready to give the illusion of privacy with her headphones.

Andy looks better, at least on the calls Nile has had with her. Enforced rest and relaxation and speaking of the myriad traumas she shelters in her mind seem to have removed a great weight from her shoulders, but the aching sadness that still steals across her face over any mention of Quynh shows that the healing is not complete.

She still smiles beautifully when the call connects, clearly only having the capacity to gaze at Quynh. It's as if Nile and the therapist don't exist.

"Andromache."

"Hello."

Quynh's eyes crinkle slightly at the corners as she stares at the laptop screen, the window with Andy's camera maximized to full-screen. "You are tan." 

Andy hums. "It has been sunny lately. Joe is trying to learn spearfishing. Nicky and I prefer sunbathing."

"Still in the nude?" Her smile is much less knife-slash now, and holds a greater element of genuine happiness along with no small part of mischief.

Andy laughs. "Not quite, no. Nicky's still surprisingly prudish for so many years gone from monastery."

Quynh's grin grows sharp, almost sharklike. "I remember a time when Nicolo was not quite so prudish at all."

Andy's face very briefly flushes red, rising slowly from her collarbones up to her ears. Her gaze darts to Nile, who pointedly turns up the volume on her headphones and hums along to Frank Ocean. She licks her lips, swallows. "Hong Kong doesn't count. That tea was laced with many things, none of them legal."

Quynh giggles, a startlingly bright sound. "But we had so much fun with it, didn't we?"

Andy's answering smile is begrudging but no less happy for it. Her eyes shine, drinking in the sight of happiness on Quynh's face. "We did. Although I'm still not sure Nicky ever truly recovered."

"He performed quite admirably for his first time with a woman," She muses, reaching out a finger to trace over the lines of Andy's subtle smile. "You look happier. You aren't trying to carry the weight of the world's sins, anymore."

"Someone told me that it was quote 'a completely bullshit and masochistic way to live'," Andy murmurs, her gaze flickering back to Nile.

Nile snorts and gives up the pretense of ignoring them now that conversation has drifted back to more socially appropriate subject matter. "Was I wrong?"

"...No."

"Mmhmm."

Quynh observes their interaction with interest, turns back to Andy when it seems Nile has no further commentary. "Nile has been teaching me all of this technology. I don't like tablets much, but phones and computers are okay. I don't think I will ever have the ease of her or Sebastien."

"Has she called you a troglodyte yet?"

Nile makes an aggrieved sound from her corner on the couch, scowling at Andy's predictable huff of laughter. "I still don't know how you messed up my laptop and I frankly don't  _ wanna _ know, but you're never allowed to use it again."

Andy hums another laugh, eyes crinkling at the corners. "We seem to be getting along fine now."

"Because I had Copley set everything up and lock all of the stuff you shouldn't be messin' with under an admin account," Nile snarks, rolling her eyes. "I'm young, not stupid."

Quynh watches them with a soft smile on her face. "You are young and yet old at the same time."

"Perils of being an older sibling." Nile shrugs, then pushes to her feet. "I think you two are doing alright on your own, so I'm gonna leave you to it, go get some dinner started." She waves genially to Andy, and fixes Quynh with a short glare. "Don't go traumatizing the doc either. If you get through a few of these, we're talking about setting up in-person visits."

Quynh rolls her eyes in return, throwing a long-suffering look back at Andy's pixelated face on the screen. "It's like they don't trust me."

"Historically, they don't have the best frame of reference, my love." Andy's voice is gentle, softened further by the look of love shining from her eyes.

"Perhaps I will give them some historical context, then," Quynh says archly, contorting her body up to hug her knee to her chest. 

"And leave them only to hear your side? Doesn't seem very fair."

Nile leaves them to it, allowing the low hum of conversation and occasional bursts of laughter to fill the air as she assembles a basic stir fry and rice for dinner. Quynh joins her after about half an hour, vaulting up onto the kitchen counter and settling with her heels swinging into the cabinets. 

"She is happier, yes?"

Nile shrugs, tossing chicken and vegetables in a blend of spices, garlic, and soy sauce. "Since I've met her? Definitely." 

"This therapy was your idea."

"Mmhmm." The answering silence hangs with unspoken questions. Nile sighs. "My dad was killed in action when I was 11. My mom was...not in a great place for a while after that. But every Thursday she'd pick me and Ty up early from school, drive out to the VA, and we'd sit in group for an hour. It didn't bring my dad back -- nothing really could -- but being able to talk to someone with similar experiences and losses...it helped a lot."

"You miss your family."

"Doesn't everyone, after a fashion?" She finishes tossing everything in the pan, deft hands flicking the burners off and settling bowls and utensils on the open counter by Quynh's hip. "Booker told me what happened with his family, in the end. Andy doesn't remember her mom, her sisters. Nicky was gonna be a priest, which historically tells me a few things about how his family might have been, but I don't know for sure. I've never asked Joe. Better to remember them for the good times and make sure they have as much closure as possible, then try to drag a potentially bad thing out."

Quynh hums. "I can't really remember their faces anymore, my family. Andromache, Lykon, Nicolo, and Yusuf became my family." She stares at Nile, steady and unblinking. "I would like to think that one day, you and Sebastien will also be like family."

"I think we all hope that is possible," Booker murmurs from the doorway to the kitchen, the canvas strap of a grocery bag looped over his shoulder. He sniffs the air appreciatively and then offers a hand to Quynh. "Shall we set the table? I have brought a new dessert for us to try after dinner."

Quynh ever so slowly takes his hand, exerting gentle pressure to hop down from the counter before turning to grab the utensils Nile left on the counter. "Baklava?"

"I think I'll leave that to Andromache and Nicolo." Booker raises his eyebrows over her head at Nile in question, mouth tilting in a cautious smile when Nile grins. "It will be a surprise."

"Probably best." Quynh moves with dancer's athleticism to the kitchen table, sets bowls and chopsticks and linens on the table. "Today was a good day, I think."

"Already laying judgement before you try the treat I have brought? A telling proclamation, I think." Booker says, grabbing the bowl of rice as Nile carries the pan of meat and vegetables to the table." 

Quynh smiles slightly from where she has seated herself, settling a napkin across her lap. "I think if Andromache and Nile can trust your judgement, I am comfortable doing the same." 

Booker's eyes crinkle as a pleased smile slowly grows on his face. "I am honored."

* * *

Slowly the score of good days versus bad days for Quynh grows, until she's having more good than bad on a regular basis.

Booker improves more slowly but his milestones of progress are not less important than any of the others. Through individual meetings, quiet talks at night with Nile, and eventually individual talks with Andy, Joe, and Nicky, Booker slowly expands back to fill the hollow shell of a man he'd been. His smiles come easier, his laugh rings out with genuine joy, and his guarded nature around Quynh eventually softens to that of a wary but affectionate younger brother.

Each day Quynh watches their sparring in the back courtyard, settled in a loose limbed posture while alert and sharp eyes track the movement and blows traded. For weeks, she watches, until one morning she appears at the breakfast table with the laptop, the webpage for an archery enthusiast's blog pulled up. "Can we do this?"

Booker blinks over the rim of his coffee cup, raises a bemused eyebrow to Nile. "To be honest the closest I've touched to a bow is a crossbow, and somehow I don't feel that is what you are looking for."

Nile shrugs. "If Andy's got me learning how to use a sword, I don't think learning to shoot a bow will hurt." She reaches for the laptop. "Lemme talk to Copley. I'll get something set up."

Quynh looks pleased. "I look forward to it."

Learning a bow is strange but also somehow feels like it was always meant to be. The archery range Copley found houses instructors in both traditional and compound bows, and while Booker is quickly drawn to the more modern compound bows with their pulleys and crossed strings, Nile finds herself wandering to where Quynh holds a carved wooden bow with reverent hands. 

"You do not want to use the newer technology?" She asks when Nile approaches, hands flashing quick and smooth across the surface of the bow as she nocks and then draws an arrow back, body and frame held in perfect tension. With a slow release of breath, the arrow leaps from the string and slices through the air before embedding in the target set downrange. 

Nile shakes her head. "We shot something more similar to these one year at summer camp, when I was little." She watches as Quynh methodically empties the quiver strapped to her hip, arrow after arrow thudding into the target with gradually improving precision. "Each of you has taken the time to teach me something that was yours. I wanted to...I thought maybe you could teach me this."

Quynh's answering smile is truly delighted. "I would be honored." She carefully slings the bow up and over her shoulder and walks down-range to retrieve the arrows from her target, checking each for any damage before slotting them back into the quiver at her side. "You are a slight bit taller than I, so we will need to find the best bow for your strength."

Nile follows, and the rest of the afternoon is spent on the smooth feel of carved wood and leather under her palms, of arrow fletching dancing along her fingertips. The three of them end the day with a small competition, Booker reluctantly submitting to the tall English longbow Quynh selects for him, and grumbling under his breath when he's predictably shown up by the two women. 

They stop at a local shop for a drink and a snack on the way back to the safe house, Quynh giggling in the bright sunlight as she licks powdered sugar from her fingertips and Booker scrubbing uselessly at the sugar dusted in his own beard. He sighs and eventually gives in to the teasing, slumped in his chair with the lazy ease of relaxation. "We should do that again sometime."

"Perhaps Andromache can join us. She never preferred ranged weapons over what she could do with her blades, but she was always skilled enough regardless." Quynh reminisces, finger tracing around the rim of her tea. "I had fun, shooting and training like that again."

Nile smiles. "Good day?"

"Very good day."


	5. i want to be as free as i'll ever be

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reunions are had, immortality is a bit more mysterious than everyone thinks it is, Quynh is very possessive, and Nile has Opinions about Chicago foodstuffs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know everyone's going to have Opinions about the Chicago stuff -- I am from the Midwest and have family that have lived in the Chicago area. That being said, Chicago dogs are an abomination. Poppyseed buns belong nowhere near a hot dog, and neither does relish.
> 
> Italian beef, however, is absolutely delicious. My family is pretty divided on the line of Portillo's vs. Al's, but Al's does have gypsy fries.

Ten months after the bloody battle in a run-down apartment in Paris, they all get together again. After some discussion, it is decided that they will all meet in America -- Quynh has never been, Nile clearly misses her home country, and the rest of them could do with a change of scenery.

Nile is pleasantly surprised when Copley hands her the details of their lodgings, eyes the Chicago address. "Really?"

"I've scrubbed anything that might be an issue already, and Andy feels as long as you all stay away from any spots your family might frequent, it might be nice for you to show them your hometown."

She's changed her hairstyle twice since that long ago day in Afghanistan, her hair now back to shorter braids that spiral across her scalp. Copley has set up identities for each of them, and seems to have kept tabs on her family besides, so she knows it is as safe as they can make it. "Yeah, that would be nice." 

Quynh spends most of the flight across the Atlantic seated by the windows, dark eyes tracking the clouds and brief glimpses of the ocean rolling below them. Nile teaches Booker how to play Trash and Egyptian Rat Screw with a battered deck of cards they'd acquired second hand, eventually tempting Quynh over to join them. Andy, Nicky, and Joe are meant to meet them at the house in Chicago, up near the Lincoln Park Zoo. 

Instead, Andy waits on the tarmac when the plane lands, sunglasses pushed up on the crown of her head in the dying evening sunlight, shining auburn tones throughout her normally dark hair. She looks almost shy as Quynh makes her way down the steps, hands tucked into the back pockets of her jeans with a tentative smile on her lips. The two of them slowly come together, both seemingly hesitant to break the fragile truce that has stood over months of video calls, but Andy's resolve finally bends enough that her hand darts forward, fingers linking and intertwining around Quynh's. 

Booker sighs heavily when he ducks through the doorway onto the steps, stopping short behind Nile as they watch the reunion unfold. "You do realize that there's going to be four of them now."

Nile rolls her eyes. "God, we really need to find you someone to fuck so that you're not so damn depressing all the time."

He scoffs, hand splayed against his chest in mock offense. "You think so little of me?"

She raises her eyebrows. "You sound like a grumpy old man."

"Well, I  _ am _ technically 253."

"Sure don't act it," Nile mutters, clattering her way noisily down the steps. "Hey lovebirds, train to Lincoln Park leaves in five minutes whether your asses are in the car or not. Q, you left your bow on the plane."

Startled out of her intent contemplation of Quynh's features, Andy visibly rolls her eyes. "I have a phone."

"And you think you can navigate through Chicago in the dark by yourself when Copley had to buy you another new phone last month?" Nile snorts. "Cute, Andy."

Quynh cranes up on tiptoe to brush a light kiss across Andy's lips, clearly delighting in the full body blush her action elicits. "Come. Nile has promised to teach me of defensive driving techniques necessary for this city."

Andy turns a faintly alarmed look on Nile and Booker, waiting patiently beside another Range Rover. "She's not--"

Nile shrugs. "She did fine in Istanbul, and Ho Minh."

Booker hums neither in agreement or disagreement. "Catalan though…"

"Still not as bad as Joe."

" I don't think it's possible for anyone to be as bad as Joe." Booker hooks a friendly arm around Andy's shoulders as Quynh jogs back up to the plane to retrieve her belongings. He bumps his hip against hers companionably, and dodges the predictable elbow to his ribs with a laugh. "We taught her Mario Kart, first. She's preferential to Bowser, most of the time."

"That's less reassuring than I think you intend it to be." 

"Where's your sense of adventure?"

"I'm pretty sure it died when we figured out that if I die again it's permanent," Andy mutters, softening the dig with a smirk. 

"You can't use that excuse forever." Booker sighs. "We also had some theories about that, in our months apart. We should discuss them back at the house." He claps his hand against her shoulder and turns to follow Nile to the car. "Besides, she's only crashed once, and that was in the little go karts."

Quynh moves back into her space, duffle bag and cloth wrapped bow case discarded at their feet, and uses Andy's belt to yank her in for an absolutely wicked kiss, tongue and flashing sharp teeth that ends with a punishing bite to her lower lip. Andy dabs away the faint taste of blood and stiffens when the wound to her lip starts to knit back together under her fingertips. "How…"

By the car, Booker swears loudly in Vietnamese and then slaps a crumpled roll of bills into Nile's waiting hand. "Damn it, Quynh, you were supposed to wait until we got to the house!"

"Pleasure doing business with you," Nile pockets the cash with a pleased smile. "C'mon, lovebirds. Andy, you can question your mortality all you want with vodka back at the house, let's go."

Andy numbly follows Quynh's guiding hand, finds herself buckled into the car, the lithe line of Quynh's body pressed against her side in the backseat. "I'm healing again."

"You aren't leaving me again for a very long time, Andromache." Quynh's voice is solemn and rings like an order, dark eyes fixed on her own. "Whatever power keeps us living owes me that much."

Andy nods dumbly, almost hypnotized by Quynh's assured gaze, and finds her fingers lacing comfortably through her love's once again. "No, I just...I burned myself on the coffee pot yesterday."

Booker's startled laughter fills the car as they drive away.

Joe and Nicky are understandably confused but elated at the news of Andy's immortality returning. Quynh gives her another biting kiss in demonstration, and Nile audibly groans and buries her head in her hands. "Let me know when they're done eye fucking, we have shit we need to do here."

Quynh's eyes sparkle with mischief. "I much prefer other kinds of fucking."

"Way more information than I wanted, thanks."

"We will find you someone yet," Quynh banters mysteriously, claiming all of Andy's available lap space on the couch, arms banded around her waist and shoulders in a clear display of ownership. "Then you cannot complain so much."

Nile wrinkles her nose, shrugs the offer away. "I'm good, thanks."

"How is this possible?" Nicky questions, open relief showing in his face. "We thought…"

"To be fair, we haven't taken a mission since before Paris. So there wasn't really any looming threat." She shrugs. "Also, I'm still not entirely sure how it comes and goes. I just had a suspicion, when we found Quynh. Especially after they were both able to start talking to each other again."

Joe looks pleased but also mildly frustrated by the explanation. "Leave it to miracles?"

“I found something to fight for.” Andy laces her fingers through Quynh’s. “I was able to see the good that we can do."

Whatever other arguments or questions Nicky and Joe have, Andy's quiet conviction as she sits wrapped around Quynh as much as Quynh is intertwined with her settles them quickly.

Quynh has never slept well without Nile or Booker in the room with her, and none of the other three seem particularly inclined to separate for the evening, so they all pile haphazardly onto a nest of blankets and pillows and couch cushions on the living room floor. She pythons her way around Andy but keeps one of Nile's arms clutched tight against her side, her feet twisted back in some awkward way to stay pressed against Booker's shin. Booker eventually accepts his position in the middle of the pile with no small amount of grumbling, Nile's head pillowed against his shoulder and Nicky's arm banded across his middle, with Joe sprawled lazily across all of their legs.

"If any of you are lookin' to fuck, you go do it in a bedroom like civilized people," Nile mumbles into the warm flannel covering Booker's shoulder. "None of that group orgy shit or whatever you got up to in Hong Kong."

"No sense of adventure. You give Quynh the safe sex conversation too?" She could  _ hear _ the eye roll in Andy's tone.

"Nope. Your girlfriend, your job. And actually -- no fuckin' until you've both been tested. I don't wanna know what five hundred year old whatever Quynh coulda caught down there."

Andy's answering groan becomes muffled slightly when Quynh kisses her to shut her up. Booker's chest quivers with repressed laughter under her head. Slowly, they all drift to sleep.

* * *

Nile introduces them to Italian beef sandwiches and gypsy fries the next day, bullying Copley into playing delivery driver. He brings back a veritable feast, sandwiches of thin shaved sirloin steak soaked in braising liquid and piled high with pickled and spiced peppers, and styrofoam clamshells of frenched fries piled high with meat, cheese, and sauce.

Nicky makes an appreciative noise after his first tentative bite, eyes widening. "This is delicious."

"One of the things Chi-town is famous for," Nile confirms, digging into the styrofoam clamshell filled with fries, cheese, and meat in front of her. "Well, some people like Portillo's better, but my dad always preferred Al's."

"Portillo's is the hot dog place, no?" Joe questions, leaning forward over the waxed paper wrapping in front of him as his sandwich drips lines of juice down his forearm.

Nile wrinkles her nose, shakes her head. "Chicago dogs are an abomination."

"Aren't you from here?"

She shrugs. "I was born here, but Momma's family is from outside of Atlanta. The only things allowed on a hot dog are chili, mustard, and chopped onions. Besides, poppyseed buns are disgusting." She sighs wistfully, sipping at the cup of Coke in front of her. "God, I miss orange drink."

"And what about this deep dish pizza?" Nicky is always cautious regarding any discussion of pizza, but also clearly curious. 

"Not really my favorite," Nile says unconcernedly. "Too much sauce, in my opinion, and they make it upside down if you ask anyone not from here. My brother loves it, though." She grins. "Now Harold's Chicken Shack...best hangover food ever." 

"What do you mean they make it upside down?"

"Crust, cheese, toppings, lotta sauce, little bit of parmesan and spices." Nile constructs an imaginary pizza in midair between all of them, illustrating with a slightly soggy french fry. "Slap it all in a big aluminum pan in that order and bake. Chicago deep dish pizza."

"But...but the sauce goes on the  _ crust _ ," Nicky whispers, clearly horrified. 

"I told you, I don't really like it. Momma didn't either, but dad and Ty would go to Lou Malnati's on their _boys_ _weekends_ sometimes." She shrugs, crunches down on another handful of fries and cheese, chews and speaks. "I don't trust anything you gotta eat with a knife and fork that you normally should be able to eat with your hands."

Nicky drops his sandwich in clear offense. 

"Nicolo, it's not worth it." Joe cautions, licking stray drips of sauce from his elbow. "Do not worry your brain over it,  _ habibi _ ."

"They are -- that's not  _ pizza _ ." He quickly descends into frustrated Italian, hands carding through his hair.

Copley sighs over his own sandwich, glances sidelong at Booker and Andy, bookends around Quynh. "Remind me to never send you to Detroit."

Nile grimaces. "Ew. Detroit pizza isn't even like, real."

Quynh alternates between bites of her own sandwich and stolen bites of Andy and Booker's fries, humming under her breath. Nile nudges the remnants of her own fries over to Booker and relaxes back into the couch with a gusty sigh of contentment. "Remind me and maybe I'll take you all down to Atlanta sometime, we can go to the Varsity."

"Nico, calm down -- it is only pizza, my love, calm down."

_ "But why would you put the sauce on top?" _


	6. let your ritual clean

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A year out from Paris, and some of the things they find as a group.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been... hesitant to post this. 98% of it has been written for a while now, but I wasn't sure how it would be received and didn't want to deal with negative reactions, but at this point I figure I might as well.
> 
> This chapter contains allusions to/the vaguest beginnings of a triad relationship between Andy, Quynh, and Nile. I still headcanon Nile as demisexual in this and will probably continue to keep it that way, but she does imply that she's open to a romantic if not necessarily sexual relationship with the other two, and Quynh more explicitly implies that she's open to the idea of bringing Nile into her relationship with Andy in whatever way works for all of them.
> 
> If that's not your thing fine, but I don't want to hear about it. Reading and writing about this part of the asexuality spectrum that I heavily identify with is something that is important to me, so if it's not your cup of tea, please feel free to skip this chapter.

A year after their reunion in Paris, Booker stands on the balcony of a safehouse in Montenegro, hands curled around a coffee cup in the still dawn air. He doesn't turn when the door behind him opens and closes, keeps his body consciously relaxed as a hand slides past his ribs and steals his coffee. Quynh leans her forehead against his spine, grumbling under her breath. "It's too early."

"Not my fault you and Andy can't keep your hands from each other, sister. You could have slept but chose otherwise."

"You know her beauty on a normal day. After she has separated some miserable swine of a man from his existence with her labrys, I cannot resist."

Booker shifts somewhat uncomfortably, sighs. "Regardless of your comfort with the subject,  _ I'm _ still not entirely comfortable so freely discussing the fact that we've both slept with Andromache."

"Isn't it a good thing that I am not prone to fits of jealousy?" She ducks under his arm, ends up leaning against the balcony rail with the stolen coffee, eyeing him over the rim with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes.

"It's cute that you think killing him like forty times in a row the first day you met him  _ doesn't _ look like petty jealousy," Nile comments from the door, two mugs of coffee hooked over the fingers of one hand. "Also, it is way too damn early."

"I wanted to watch the sunrise." Booker hums, takes the offered coffee and holds it well above Quynh's reach when her eyes fix on his new cup. "She's bored because she and Andy fucked into a stupor. Or she fucked Andy into a stupor, I suppose."

"Yeah, pretty sure the whole building heard," Nile mutters. "At least Joe and Nicky are decent enough to get a hotel room."

Quynh preens. "But I enjoy being close with our family."

"Don't mean I wanna hear all about your kinks." Nile yawns, settling against his free side with her head resting against his shoulder. 

She grins wickedly. "We just need to find you someone. Since Sebastien is so resistant to my matchmaking abilities."

"Sebastien has not recovered from your last attempt at matchmaking, and doesn't plan on playing guinea pig again." Booker mumbles into his coffee, ignoring the mock wounded look from Quynh. "Stop meddling in the poor girl's life. None of us have recovered from Amsterdam."

Andy appears silently about fifteen minutes later, curling her entire body around Quynh from behind as they all watch the slowly growing light of dawn. Quynh passes the lukewarm coffee back, grinning when Andy drinks and then promptly spits it back out. "Stop stealing Booker's coffee. It's not coffee."

He scoffs. "Just because you drink black coffee doesn't mean the rest of us have to."

"I'm the oldest. You all should follow my example."

"You drink it black for the aesthetic, we all know damn well you have an incurable sweet tooth otherwise," Nile mumbles sleepily from Booker's opposing shoulder. "Quit tryin' to act cool in front of your girlfriend and just enjoy the sunrise."

* * *

Quynh still prefers sleeping in at least the same room as Nile or Booker. Andy's not unaware of the fact that her hold on what is real and not real is sometimes tenuous, and gets worse if she can't see or interact with the two youngest members of their group, so she says nothing. Usually after a particularly athletic bout of fucking, Quynh will eventually roll out of the bed, dress in some cast-off clothing of Andy's, and go curl up in a nest with Nile or go flop on top of Booker, and sleep the night away.

It takes her probably longer than she'd like to admit to realize Quynh wants  _ her _ there too. Nile is the one who points it out, appearing one night at the door to the bedroom Andy nominally claimed as hers, pillow creases showing on her face as she squints in the darkness. 

"Y'know it's not like a knock on your abilities in the sack, right?" 

Andy badly muffles a snort of laughter, glancing over from her previously intent contemplation of the ceiling fan swinging above the bed. "I'm well aware of my ability to satisfy my girlfriend, thanks."

Nile purses her lips in a moue of distaste but seems to get over it, sighing. "Y'all nasty as hell, but I'm being serious. She sleeps better when we're all there, she just doesn't know how to ask for it."

Andy blinks. "She's…"

"God, why am  _ I _ the least emotionally repressed one?" Nile whines, smacking a palm to her forehead in exasperation. "You can't be this thick."

Many small observations over the past two months slot together in her mind. Slowly, Andy rolls over to snag a clean shirt from the pile of discarded clothing on the floor, pushes herself up to a sitting position on the bed. "She doesn't always like to talk about --"

"She's afraid you're going to think she's got some kinda thing for me or Book, which kinda offends me a little bit but I'm a big girl and I can handle it." She leans a hip against the doorway, her gaze oddly direct and perhaps a little more vulnerable in the dark than Andy is normally comfortable with. "Book thinks of her like an annoying older sister." She shifts uncomfortably on her feet, gaze dropping to the ground between them. "...and while you're both devastatingly attractive and all, I don't really like  _ anyone _ like that."

"Have you told Quynh that?"

Nile shrugs. "It's not really…" She sighs. "I'm kinda still trying to help her understand this century, let alone all of the ways sexuality has evolved. It's on the list, eventually, and it doesn't really bother me. Plus it's funny when she turns it on Booker."

Andy shrugs, pushing to her feet with a pillow tucked under one arm. "She'd stop if you asked her. And I think she'd understand more than you think." One shoulder hitches in a half-shrug. "He never really explained it, but I think Lykon had similar feelings like you. He was never really interested in anyone, even though Quynh tried to set him up with many people."

"Really, it's fine." She shrugs. "It makes her happy, and it's one of the healthier ways she has of showing affection." Nile nods towards the living room, evidently done with the conversation. "Go on ahead, I need to get a drink of water."

Andy walks to the living room, coming across Booker pinned facedown under Quynh's smaller form on the ridiculously sized couch. She brushes a gentle hand over her love's back, carefully maneuvering herself into a glaringly obvious open space to Booker's left. 

Quynh hums contentedly in her sleep, grasping hand reaching out enough to curl around Andy's elbow to pull her closer. When Nile silently joins them a few minutes later, Andy watches as Quynh's body finally relaxes fully into sleep, face blissful and free of any turmoil. She meets Nile's soft but amused gaze over the crown of Booker's head and rolls her eyes, keeps a palm pressed against Quynh's ribcage like a touchstone. Comfortable and together, they sleep.

* * *

To be honest, Quynh has a better grasp of technology than she lets on, which is how she comes to be huddled on the garden wall of a safehouse in Prague with Nile's phone in her hands, focused intently on the screen below her.

It is a credit to Andy and Nicky's training that Nile manages to sneak up on her unawares, startling Quynh into almost falling from her perch when she speaks. "You know, you could just ask, like a civilized person."

"I am not a civilized person."

"Mmmh. You are when you want to be," She mutters, hopping up on the wall. "It's not a slight on your matchmaking prowess if I don't date, Q."

With a sigh Quynh leans into Nile's shoulder, the phone falling to rest limply in her lap. "You are like Lykon was."

"Maybe, I don't know how he chose to identify himself, or if the world even had the words for it back then." Nile says. "I'm very rarely attracted to anyone at all, and even then I'm not usually interested in sex."

Quynh hums. "Andromache said you think we are devastatingly attractive."

"Well, yes." She shrugs. "But I'm happy with things the way they are, and I'll probably continue to be happy regardless. It's just how my identity is. Sex isn't something I feel like I need, and I'm happy and comfortable living my life only with romantic attraction and companionship."

"Romantic is not sexual?"

"It doesn't have to be." 

Quynh nods, interlaces her fingers between Nile's to study the contrast between their skin. "You aren't lonely?" She traces the line of a single scar on the back of Nile's hand -- seemingly some injury sustained before her immortality, as anything gained afterwards would have healed -- and continues, hesitant. "Sebastien seemed so very lonely, all those years."

Nile smiles fondly, swapping hands with Quynh to wrap the closer arm around her shoulders. "You're sweet, if a little misguided. Booker's got a lot of stuff about his family swirling around in his head, and it's probably gonna take him a long time to process it. Not that I've missed the way he stares at Copley's ass sometimes, but that's besides the point. I'm happy with the way things are, and I promise that you and Andy'll be the first people I talk to if something changes."

"Promise?" Quynh has made no secret of the feelings she has towards their youngest, the fierce determination that reminds her so vividly of Andromache in the beginning. Nile’s youth has been a touchstone in keeping Quynh’s mind in the present, and not trapped beneath the waves of her nightmares. She is beautiful and strong and somehow keeps their entire group together with the strength of her heart.

“You’re sweet.” Nile bumps her shoulder companionably, laughing. “Yes, I promise I’m fine, and I promise I’ll talk to you if that changes in any way.”

Andy eventually ducks her head out of the kitchen where she has been very badly pretending to not listen, a small smirk curling her lips. "You two done talking about feelings now?"

Nile flips her off, jumping down from the wall effortlessly. "Fuck off, dinosaur."

"I was not done cuddling with. you" Quynh judges the distance and then jumps, landing perfectly with her legs and arms wrapped around Nile, who squawks in protest as she scrambles to catch and arrange limbs safely. 

"Oh my God, Andy make her stop, I'm too short for this shit."

She considers, squinting. "Hm, yes. You have a point." Quynh beckons imperiously, dragging Andromache to her side with a flirty grin and the alluring weight of her dark gaze. "Come here, I require your height."

"You're very demanding today," Andy comments serenely, accepting her nomination as pack horse with grace and calm. Nile brushes her clothing back to rights once Quynh is wrapped around Andy, rolling her eyes. 

"She's demanding on every day ending in a y."

"All days end in -- oh, I understand that reference!" Quynh smiles, bright and pleased, then sobers slightly. "I wish to spend time together. Is that so bad?"

Nile sighs, badly pretending to be exasperated, and accepts the grasping hand Quynh reaches towards her. "Fine, fine. I'll hang with the immortal girlfriends for the day. Such a difficult life."

"You love us." Quynh points imperiously back to the house, squeezing her thighs inward at Andy's sides in a facsimile of directing a mount. "Forward, mighty steed. I want to play Smash."

Andy groans dramatically, trudging forward after much prodding to the living room. "I hate that game."

"I mean if you don't throw the remote at the TV it tends to go better," Nile offers, smirking at Andy's predictable grumblings. 

Quynh loves all the button mashing and cartoon fights of Nile's favorite game, and delights utterly in forever chasing the poor swordsman character Andromache picks off of the edge of their battlefields. She sits on the couch above Andromache, legs around her shoulders, and rests her remote control on the top of her love's head for a more stable button smashing platform.

"Ow, hey!"

"Sit still, Andromache, I need to knock Nile off of this platform."

"Fuck off, Kirby!"


End file.
